


In the Company of Wolves

by werepope (quiteparadise)



Series: 2014 Advent Calendar for a Filthy-Minded Athiest [25]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Liam is a poor woodcutter, M/M, Perrie is Red Riding Hood, Some mildly scary bits, Violence, Zayn is the big bad wolf, fairy tale AU, hopefully
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 11:10:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2848748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiteparadise/pseuds/werepope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone's got a lot in life.  Some just have it worse than others.</p><p> </p><p>Advent calendar challenge: Author's choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Company of Wolves

**Author's Note:**

> Massive and earnest thanks to everyone who has read this little advent calendar! Even more massive thanks to the commenters and kudos-leavers. I've thoroughly enjoyed myself and I hope you've gotten a little of that as well.

It's not easy, living in the Land of Enchantment. Things are alright if you're a charming prince or a fair maiden, but those are few and far between. It's far more likely that you'll reach your "after" with smallpox than a "happily ever," even if you do toil away thanklessly for an evil step-parent, or slay a dragon, or grow a giant beanstalk. Honestly, though. Smallpox is no laughing matter in a land where magic potions are the only form of medical treatment, and more than half of those are straight up poison.

Liam has it pretty well, in the grand scheme of things. Woodcutting is nothing much to write home about, but his chances of falling into an everlasting sleep are very slim in his line of work, and there haven't been dragons in this part of the country for ages. Liam is not complaining. Not in the least. Even if he does think, sometimes, that he'd make a pretty heroic prince.

The world needs far more woodcutters than it does princes, that's all.

Liam swings his axe, dealing the trunk a final blow before it begins tilting away, wood crunching and branches crackling as it falls with a mighty crash to the ground. He wipes sweat from his brow with his sleeve while silence settles back across the forest.

Mostly silence, anyway. From behind him comes an appreciative whistle.

"Nice work," says the wolf.

Liam hefts the axe up onto his shoulder. "It's more accuracy than strength."

"You're too humble. I've seen your arms," the wolf says. He brushes past Liam to take a hop up onto the trunk of the tree, which shudders slightly but holds his weight.

"Careful," Liam warns, throwing an arm up just in case. The wolf's thick-soled boots don't slide at all, but he does have a bad habit of leaving them untied. One of these days, those laces are going to get the better of him.

"I don't supposed you've come across any geese that lay golden eggs, have you?" the wolf asks. "Or little orphan children who've eaten too much candy?"

"No." Liam swings his axe again, planting the head of it into the pale, splintered wood of the stump. "It's no wonder the villagers think badly of you when you talk like that, Zayn."

The wolf smiles rather devilishly at him and flicks a strand of hair from out of his gold-brown eyes. "Just curious. I'm starving and the basket's got nothing but ham sandwiches in today."

"Oh. Do you mind if I..?"

The wolf shrugs. "Help yourself."

"I like ham," Liam says, pulling the covering off of the basket. The wolf is half right. There are quite a few sandwiches, but there's also little spiced cakes and a couple of apples. "She put in those cakes you like. That was sweet of her."

The wolf does a turn on the felled tree. He has to shove his arms out to stop his wobble from turning into a fall. He looks rather adorable that way. He looks as young as he really is, under the leather jacket and the scruff of facial hair.

"It's not sweet," the wolf says, tipping his hips this way and that to get his balance back. "It's annoying."

"If you were really annoyed, you'd stop taking it," Liam points out around a mouthful of sandwich.

The wolf scoffs. "I can't just stop taking it, babe. It's my job. Like your lumberjacking."

"Woodcutting."

"Same thing. It's just what we do, isn't it? You jack lumber and I take baskets of food."

"I thought wolves were supposed to eat grandmothers," Liam says, licking a smear of mayonnaise off of his thumb.

The wolf does lose his balance then, although he manages to land on his feet. They're quite agile, wolves, when they want to be. "And then get split open by woodcutters, don't forget."

"Oh. Right." Liam wrinkles his nose. He isn't nearly as hungry as he'd thought he was, all of a sudden.

"Come on, Liam. We don't have to do it, just because they expect us to." The wolf kicks some leaves at him before sitting down on the ground at his side. He reaches over Liam to get one of the cakes.

"Well, no. I wouldn't, you know, even if they tried to make me."

Zayn smiles and rips the cake in two pieces, offering one to Liam. The smaller one, though, with less icing. He is a wolf, after all. "I've got no taste for grandmothers anyway. I don't think it'll come to all that."

Liam thinks the cakes taste a bit weird, to be honest, but he takes it. He always takes the things the wolf gives him, no matter how weird they are. The wolf just seems to enjoy giving him things, especially things that other people have given him. Like the cakes, which Liam is sure Red Riding Hood makes especially for him. And the scarf with _ZM_ stitched prettily into the knitting. And the bracelet with the silver moon charm on it.

"Well if you do decide you want to eat someone, let me know," Liam says.

The wolf chokes on a bit of cake. Liam rubs his back until he's stopped coughing.

…

Liam lives in a cottage on the edge of the village. It's a small cottage, as woodcutters always live in, but he has a nice view down into the valley and no neighbors to speak of, except for the woodland animals, and very few of them speak. In the way of woodcutters' cottages, it is made of logs, has a steep wood shingle roof, and a stone chimney that is always billowing smoke. One thing you have to say for the homes of woodcutters – there is always a nice fire going.

Having the woods as his back garden means he's got rather a short commute to work every morning. It also means that he gets the early warning about any dangerous happenings there. This, like cutting firewood for the villagers, is part of the woodcutter's lot. It's his job to go out into the woods with his axe on his shoulder, should he hear any screaming.

Thankfully, it doesn't happen often.

Maybe that's why he doesn't immediately recognize the screaming, when it does happen. It takes him a minute, standing by the fire, dropping carrots into his stew, for the sound to filter through and trigger an alarm in his brain.

He snatches his axe up as he bangs out of the door, running into the woods toward the sound of the screams, even though it's generally a very bad idea to run with axes. He's a trained professional. Well. He's an experienced professional, anyway.

Go deep enough in, and the woods are dark and scary even during broad daylight, because this is the Land of Enchantment and all woods have dark, scary places at the hearts of them. At night, every bit of the woods are sort of dark and scary, but Liam is a woodcutter. These are his woods, and if they scare him tonight it's only because he's afraid of what's happening to someone, not for himself.

He leaps across a steam, vaults one-handed over a tree he felled earlier in the day, and easily avoids the twigs and branches that grab like skeletal hands at his clothes. He is going so fast that he almost takes out the maiden running in the opposite direction, who spins away from him with a startled cry and falls elegantly to the ground in a swirl of scarlet cape and blonde locks.

"Red Riding Hood?" Liam sets his axe safely out of the way as he crouches near her. She continues to lay in her elegant pile, but Liam can see her shoulder shaking with silent sobs. He touches her gently on the arm. "Perrie? Are you alright?"

"No," she says, pushing herself to sit up. Her hair, like her clothes, is in an artful mess. Her big, perfectly blue eyes are red with tears. She is a beautifully made mess, the way maidens are supposed to be. "The wolf!"

Liam looks around for him, because he's usually not far off if Liam is in the woods, but there's only the eerie sounds of nighttime and, in the distance, approaching torchlight as the villagers come to investigate.

"What about him?" Liam asks, feeling cold and nervous all of a sudden, and wishing he hadn't put his axe down. He helps her up. Her hands shake where she holds onto him, but she stands under her own power. "Red, what happened to the wolf? Where is he?"

"He attacked me," she yells, choking on her own voice and clutching harder at him. There is dirt caked under her broken nails, and they dig into his arm raggedly. She pushes away from him, stumbling slightly, so that he makes a grab for her, but she jerks away from his hand. "The wolf attacked me!"

…

At her home, Red Riding Hood's mother and the baker's wife take her upstairs, holding onto her elbows and speaking to her in low, comforting voices that Liam can't make out. Liam is having a hard time understanding anything, at the moment, even the loud, furious voices of the villagers gathered in front of the fire discussing what's to be done.

Liam clenches and unclenches his hands and thinks, unhelpfully, that he's left his axe in the woods.

"The wolf has gone too far this time," the mayor says, smacking a fist into the open palm of his other hand. "We can't allow something like this to happen again. He could have killed her!"

"This time?" Liam asks, too quiet under the thrum of agreement from the other villagers. "Wait. Wait! What do you mean 'this time'?"

The butcher's voice is a cruel snarl. "He's a wolf. A murderer and a devourer."

"But he's never done any of that. The worse he's ever done is take the baskets she makes up for him."

"It's what wolves do, woodcutter. You of all people should know that," says the mayor. "We've been lucky up to now, but we can't risk it happening again."

"But the wolf doesn't do those things," Liam says. "That's ridiculous. That's like saying all old women live in shoes, and they're all dirty, so we should evict them."

"My mother lives in a shoe," says the candlestick maker, scowling. "What've you got to say about it?"

"Nothing! Nothing at all. Except that, you know. Just because your mother lives in a shoe doesn't mean that– You can't assume that just because– It's prejudices like this that–"

"Shut up," yells the butcher. "We've got to get rid of that damn wolf, and we've got to do it tonight, before he gets away."

"But it's _Zayn_ ," Liam says.

"Go get your axe, woodcutter," says the mayor. "We're going to need it."

...

They don't find the wolf. None of them know where he lives, Liam included, and so their search consists mostly of walking the woods in a long, straight line while waving torches and calling for him – _come out, come out, wherever you are_.

By dawn they're exhausted and at the edge of the dark and scary part of the woods, where they don't dare to tread without fresh torches. So they decide to go back, to take breakfast and check in on Red Riding Hood, before heading in. Liam watches them walk down into the valley from outside his little cottage, trailing their pitchforks tiredly behind them.

He'll go into town himself, after the streets are clear. He'll go see Red Riding Hood, make sure she's alright. See if she remembers anything more about last night, now that the shock has worn off.

He's only shut the door behind himself before the wolf is all but on him, his face pinched up with concern.

"What's happened?" he asks, as Liam jerks back against the door hard enough to hit his head. "Babe, what's going on? Why were there men out all night waving torches around?"

Liam rubs the back of his skull and stares and stares at the wolf, trying to see through the gold shine of his eyes and into his head. The wolf only frowns at him harder.

"Liam! Tell me!"

"Where were you?" Liam asks instead, edging away from the wolf and toward the fire. A woodcutter's house has to have a fire going, or else it's not a woodcutter's house. Besides, he's chilled through after last night.

"In the dark and scary woods."

"Where were you before that?"

The wolf crosses his arms over his chest. The leather of his jacket squeaks a little as he does it. "Before the village decided to host an impromptu hunt? In my den. Where else would I have been? I'm not nocturnal, you know."

"You're not?"

"Babe." The wolf sighs. "I spend all day with you. When did you think I slept?"

"Well, you do tend to nap," Liam says, pulling last night's stew pot from the hook.

"When I can manage it, with all your jacking."

"It's just called cutting, Zayn, honestly."

"Why aren't you telling me what happened!?" Zayn snaps.

Liam flinches, carrying the heavy cast iron pot to the back door to dump. "I wasn't sure if you already knew."

"I've told you I didn't," the wolf says, following him. "Tell me now."

The wolf tries to step outside after him, and Liam almost drops the pot on both of their feet trying to get him to stay inside. He plants a hand on his chest and pushes, urging him gently back.

"It's Red Riding Hood. She was attacked last night."

The wolf's eyes widen. "What do you– Is she alright? What happened?"

Liam shakes his head, but he regrets it immediately, as the wolf takes it as a 'no' and falls back from him in shock. "I don't think she was hurt badly," Liam says quickly, reaching for him. He digs his fingers into the soft leather of the wolf's jacket. "She was just in shock last night. I haven't heard anything this morning."

The wolf goes weak with relief, sagging forward into Liam, who puts an arm around his shoulders. "Poor Red," the wolf says. "I'm so sorry."

Liam tenses, his stomach clenching hard enough to make him feel sick, make his vision waver. "Zayn, you have to go."

"What?" The wolf pulls back from him but his fingers press harder into Liam's back.

"A wolf attacked her," Liam says. "They were hunting _you_."

"A wolf?" The horrible, fearful look is back in the wolf's eyes now. "I didn't. I wouldn't!"

"I know that."

"She makes me cakes," the wolf says, almost a moan. "I didn't want to eat her up, but I would never– I wouldn't eat her up!"

"Shh!" Liam touches his shoulder and his neck and the hinge of his jaw. "Shh. I know. I tried to tell them that, but they wouldn't listen."

"No, they wouldn't, would they? They hate wolves."

Liam touches the soft skin behind his ear. "I won't let them hurt you," he says.

…

Red Riding Hood is certain that a wolf attacked her. She is not certain that the wolf attacked her. It was dark and he didn't speak, only growled low in his throat as he chased her. She had only gotten away from him when Liam came crashing through. The axe must have scared him off from further pursuit. She's very lucky that she's as fast as she is, and has such a loud scream. There's no doubt that he would have gobbled her right up.

There is also no doubt, at least amongst most of them, that the wolf in question is the village's resident wolf. Liam doesn't believe it in the least, and Red Riding Hood isn't particularly inclined to either – she knows the wolf better than anyone, after Liam. But a wolf did attack her, and neither of them can dissuade the villagers from resuming the hunt for him.

They won't find him. Liam made him promise to stay in the woodcutter's cabin, where it's safe and warm and there are no pitchforks at all. He's very glad he did, too, because the villagers are jumpy and vicious in the dark and scary woods, where the trees grow so closely together that light cannot penetrate the canopy, and the twigs and branches reach down to snag on your clothes and brush against your cheek.

They walk spread out in a straight line, but the ground is difficult and uneven, with the trees lifting their roots to trip people. The villagers have a tendency to walk at an angle, away from each other, without realizing it, as if the woods are trying to separate them or turn them back.

It doesn't take long for there to be a friendly fire incident. The baker gets turned around after tangling with a particularly angry elm, and accidentally sneaks up on the candlestick maker, who smacks him with his torch and lights his big white hat on fire.

The further in they go, the closer the trees drift toward one another. Liam can hear them moving in the darkness, just out of the sight, beyond the light of his torch. Their trunks groan quietly as they shift. He keeps the flickering light of the other villagers in the corners of his eyes, one on either side, but it's a poor orientation, when they're all being led by the slow movement of the trees.

The torch of his neighbor on the left goes out of sight as he walks through particularly thick growth, and then just doesn't come back. Liam freezes, turning his head to try and search out a flicker of that light, but there is only the darkness and the claustrophobic feeling of being closed in on. He looks to his right, to catch sight of his other neighbor, but instead there is the sudden flash of something large moving close enough to brush him, something so dark that it eats up all the light that is passes through, instead of being illuminated by it.

 _Wolf_ , he thinks, and in his head there is a deafening wash of noise that might be his own blood rushing through his ears. His pulse sounds like _wolf_. Wolf! "WOLF!"

The darkness comes at him again, rushing in from the same side, as if it had circled him. As if it has been circling him, maybe. It knocks into him hard enough to jar his arm, but he keeps a furious, petrified grip on his torch, on the haft of his axe, which he swings up near his shoulder.

He won't get a good grip on it one-handed. Enough to injure the creature, if he can make it out in the darkness. More than enough to injure himself, should he swing wildly.

He does neither.

The wolf brushes near enough to breathe damp against the back of his neck, and it's pure, terrified instinct that makes him drop the light to grip the axe with both hands as he turns to face the danger even as he stumbles back.

It is one thing, he realizes, to go racing into the darkness with someone's screams in your ears. It's another thing entirely to stand in the darkness, biting down on your own fear so as not to scream.

The torch gutters but doesn't go out, so Liam gets to see this wolf now as it circles him, closing in as slowly and surely as the trees are.

"Woodcutter," the wolf says. He is dark-haired, broad-chested, hirsute under the open collar of his dark shirt. His hands and cuffs are grimed in dirt, as are his tall boots. His face, when he smiles, is mean and hungry. "You owe me a meal."

Liam flexes his hands on the haft of his axe, ready to loosen as he swings to get the full force of the momentum, to get the range of the long handle. "I made stew," he says. He shuffles his feet in the dirt to keep the wolf in front of him.

"Maybe I will, too," says the wolf, and lunges for him.

In the last moment of light, as wet leaves scatter and put out the failing torch, Liam makes out the sight of Zayn, darting forward out of the narrow gap between two trees.

Liam swings. The feel of the haft sliding smoothly against his palm is familiar. The feel of the blade striking flesh and bone is foreign and terrible.

…

The mayor has to squeeze himself through the trees, which are stubbornly refusing to retreat, caging Liam in darkness with the feeling of blood slicking up his hands and Zayn's leather jacket.

"Move!" the mayor bellows, and the larch shudders slightly aside, causing him to stumble and almost fall forward onto his face. He has to grab at the tree to catch himself. It hauls itself further away from the touch, breaking the ring.

In the torchlight, Zayn looks worse than Liam had feared, better than he'd hoped. He has deep gouge marks on his shoulder, ragged and red where they show through the tears in his shirt. The look on his face is almost as bad, possibly because he is thinking the same thing Liam is. Liam can't be certain, but he's pretty sure he looks just as bad as he feels.

At the mayor's feet is the wolf, who looks predictably, sickeningly gruesome, with his throat torn open and an axe head buried under his ribs.

Zayn scrambles up onto his knees and Liam follows, hissing. Zayn helps him the rest of the way, until he's on his feet. Liam tries to be careful of him, of his torn shoulder, but he can't stop himself leaning into him. Zayn knots his hand into the back of Liam's shirt, which hopefully means that he doesn't mind.

"The wolf," Liam says, needlessly, as the rest of the villagers crowd into the widening gap of the retreating trees, craning their necks to see.

"Not our wolf, then," says the butcher, at the mayor's back.

Liam shakes his head. "No," he says. "Not my wolf."

...

Liam remains a woodcutter, with his axe and his woods and his woodcutter's cabin. Zayn remains a wolf, with his toothy smile and his gold-brown eyes and his ability to turn up wherever Liam is.

They live happily ever after.


End file.
